We do Rhône Rhône Rhône…

Incredibly smooth flight to Brussels, short layover till our flight to Marseille, where a charming Frenchman in Viking’s pay met us and drove the remaining distance to Avignon, where we’re now docked near the famous pont, above the Viking Hermod. (An aside: in the Norse pantheon Hermod is Mercury’s counterpart, messenger of the gods and brother to the beautiful and much lamented Baldur, a dying god who did NOT return.)

Of course I’m’na go into 14th century Avignon, the Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy, but I’m reading Lawrence Durrell’s Avignon Quartet, set in WW II Avignon ( the city was captured by the Germans in 1942) so that colours my view of the city, too. What discomfort, privation, heart-wrenching destruction of belovèd humans AND belovèd places, that generation had to endure. I just read a passage where the Germans made everybody bring their bicycles to the Clock Square in Avignon—and then bulldozed them all, pulverized ‘em, right in front of kids to whom the bikes had been given for First Communion, Lycée graduation, etc., and old people who had no other means of bringing home their baguettes. Ostensibly because the Nazis didn’t want anybody getting messages to the francs-tireurs outside the city, but whatevs: those bozos were so damn MEAN, as well as evil.

I hope our kids aren’t in for the same kind of trauma as their grandparents! But they can handle it;; they are as brave as they are beautiful. (There! That should make up for the geezer pop song reference of my title!)

We strolled around the city this afternoon.  I’ll try to send you a picture of the famous pont, (update: no I can only send it on my phone) which used to go all the way across the Rhône but since 1689 flood doesn’t even make it to the island in the middle of the river.  It was on that island that people used to dance “en rond”, SOUS le pont , not SUR le pont.

Very warm today, I got worried that I had brought the wrong season’s clothes—but people are still dressed for winter, so it’s okay.

(Absolutely no sign of civil unrest here in Avignon, which I was a tad apprehensive about, having seen the footage from Paris.    Pas de problème! )

So tonight, we’re having g a live concert on board, “Les Gitans” ( the gypsies, as I’m sure you know) —but it think I’ll send this now, because, IF I manage to keep awake during the show 😴 I know I’ll be too sleepy to write about it tonight…we cast off for Arles at 5 AM tomorrow.